by Elizabeth Smith
It was there that I found you, sitting out on my back steps,
humming a tune that reminded me of home.
You were a left hand glove,
left in a child’s lost and found
with no one to claim you aside from the hole torn in your
fourth finger.
Your whole life was spent heating the souls of others
and maybe it was time for yours to be held.
I tried to pick you up with my dreamcatcher,
but somewhere between the beads
and the feathers
and the strings
you slipped away.
You’re a raindrop on my windowpane.
You’re a freckle on my sun burnt cheeks.
You’re everywhere that I need you to be,
But nowhere that I need you to be;
No where that you need you to be.
It was there that I found you.
And I rang the bell. And I called you in,
But maybe where you were from it wasn’t dinnertime yet.
Time is a tricky thing.
I’d like to pretend that I don’t look for you every time a shadow
crosses my path.
I’d like to put on princess clothes and a crown and play dress up
just one more time.
But time is a tricky thing.
And we never got it right.